Ryan White Care Act: Policy
The Ryan White Care Act is the nation’s first infrastructure in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The Care Act came at a time when people were dying of the disease. The years preceding the enactment of the Ryan White Care Act, peoples’ lives were at stake. There was no cure or treatment. Instead, there were uncertainties. And, the disease became highly publicized. Those in the gay community came out and spoke openly about their HIV/AIDS. The fear and homophobia from society, gay men and women took to the street to demand a government response to AIDS and were influenced to create a national movement.
Although the “war on AIDS have contributed to the development of the Ryan White policy, such course of action came firsthand through the death of a brave young man. Ryan White, diagnosed at the age of 13 with AIDS through a blood transfusion became the driving force of change. The movement brought about much awareness. HIV/AIDS can happen to anyone. He was the first teenager, the first with hemophiliac to have AIDS. Since, the life and struggle of Ryan White, there has been changes in helping those with the disease. Ryan White’s death has sparked a national outcry for those who suffers with HIV/AIDS
Identifying
Ryan White’s effort and those who respond to the needs of the epidemic have caused both houses of Congress in 1990 to pass a comprehensive HIV/AIDS Resource Emergency (Care) Act to provide health care to those who have no insurance to get proper care. The program is the largest federal program in the United States (Rowan, 2013). The federal funding of the Ryan White is used mainly for medical care. The funds are primarily for individuals to receive health care coverage and financial resources. The prog...
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... competes with other programs. As a federal grant program the funding does not necessarily correspond with the need for service.
Throughout, the Ryan White Care program has gone through many changes and adjustments. Still, it remains the largest federal grant of HIV/AIDS population. The program has helped individuals and families to access care, where they could not have done otherwise. The program has also allowed social worker to play a vital role in advocating and involving in policy of HIV/AIDS treatment and resources. As a social worker, it is important to know the future of the Ryan White policy so as to help in the total care of the clients or patient with the disease. New changes have been taking place, as there are changes to the policy in terms of a passage of the national health care reform and the HIV/AIDS strategy as a major development in the country.
Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.
AIDS is the one of the most devastating diseases known to man as of today. “At the EJAF (Elton John AIDS Foundation) we believe that AIDS can be beaten” (Elton). Elton John AIDS Foundation is one of the most well-known charities in it’s field and is well respected throughout the world. Elton John decided to start this organization after losing two of his close friends, Freddie Mercury and Ryan White, to the disease. The foundation was initially set up in the United States (New York) in 1992, and then the United Kingdom (London) in 1993 (Elton). The principal advocacy of the foundation is to improve the quality of life of those diagnosed with or at high risk for HIV/AIDS.
Healthcare has been a topic of discussion with the majority of the country. Issues with insurance coverage, rising costs, limited options to gain coverage, and the quality of healthcare have become concerns for law makers, healthcare providers and the general public. Some of those concerns were alleviated with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, but new concerns have developed with problems that have occurred in the implementation of the new law. The main concerns of the country are if the Affordable Care Act will be able to overcome the issues that plagued the old healthcare system, the cost of the program, and how will the new law affect the quality of the health delivery system.
Randy Shilts set out to make monumental changes in the world’s perspective of AIDS. He planned to enlighten, motivate, and educate the population on this tragic disease that has already claimed so many lives. He believed that virtually all the misconceptions about AIDS would be corrected and the public would insist that more be done to stop the epidemic. "I had hoped to effect some fundamental changes. I really believed I could alter the performance of the institutions that had allowed AIDS to sweep through America unchecked" (220). Shilts’s immense expectations positioned him for his inevitable sense of failure. He did not accomplished all that he had planned. AIDS was still spreading and people were still dying. "The bitter irony is, my role as an AIDS celebrity just gives me a more elevated promontory from which to watch the world make the same mistakes in the handling of the AIDS epidemic that I hoped my work would help to change"(220).
Reese, Philip. Public Agenda Foundation. The Health Care Crisis: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage. New York: McGraw, 2002.
Health insurance, too many American citizens, is not an option. However, some citizens find it unnecessary. Working in the health care field, I witness the effects of uninsured patients on medical offices. Too often, I see a “self-pay” patient receive care from their doctor and then fail to pay for it. Altogether, their refusal to pay leaves the office at a loss of money and calls for patients to pay extra in covering for the cost of the care the uninsured patient received. One office visit does not seem like too big of an expense, but multiple patients failing to pay for the care they receive adds up. Imagine the hospital bills that patients fail to pay; health services in a hospital are double, sometimes triple, in price at a hospital. It is unfair that paying patients are responsible for covering these unpaid services. Luckily, the Affordable Care Act was passed on March 23, 2010, otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare is necessary in America because it calls for all citizens to be health insured, no worrying about pre-existing conditions, and free benefits for men and women’s health.
The government played a major part in the AIDS situation. The government’s blood banks did not wish to check blood with a test developed by the CDC because it was not “cost-efficient.” The government also neglected the CDC of large sums of money needed in the pursuit of a cure or vaccine in the disease and thought more of dollar signs that the lives of people.
...easures. In 1990 HIV-infected people were included in the Americans with Disabilities Act, making discrimination against people with AIDS for jobs, housing, and other social benefits illegal. Additionally, the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act established a community-funding program designed to assist in the daily lives of people living with AIDS. This congressional act was named in memory of a young man who contracted HIV through blood products and became a public figure for his courage in fighting the disease and community prejudice. The act is still in place, although continued funding for such social programs is threatened by opposition in the U.S. Congress.
...be pathway to autonomy by supporting a person’s entitlement to make decisions about their own health and health care (Feinsod & Wagner, 2008). It is a person’s right to know when they seek medical treatment it will be delivered with no bias or discrimination. This can be achieved by continuing AIDS education in health care facilities and to their staff. The education would also benefit society. The health care community has an ethical duty to do whatever is needed to ensure that all patients, including those with AIDS, gain from the most current treatments. Nurses have many roles in patient care. Expanding some of those roles, in order to determine the various aspects of a patient’s life, to help organize services to start/continue the most current treatment available to AIDS patients, may assist in minimizing the fear of discrimination in the clinical setting.
"Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton
In response to this continuous issue, on Mar. 23, 2010 the senate approved President Barrack Obama’s bill entitled, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The purpose of this bill was to reduce medical costs while simultaneously providing every American access to health insurance. In order for the Obama administration to effectively improve health care is to consider all other governmental polices that will be directly and indirectly affected, whether it is positively or negatively. As with any new law, there are those who ...
Due to the affordable Care Act, the middle class will not have the finances to support the everyday cost of living in Indiana. Americans have a hard enough time surviving in the recovering economy. Now they have to deal with higher premiums and increased penalties if they do not sign up for the Affordable Care Act.
On August 19, 1992 in Houston, Texas, Mary Fisher, the HIV-positive daughter of prominent Republican fundraiser Max Fisher, gives her keynote speech “A Whisper of Aids” to the Republican National Convention (1). Fisher’s purpose is “to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” epidemic (1). Fisher succeeds in her overall persuasiveness by effectively using ethos, logos, and pathos throughout her address to the conservative Republican Party to advocate for awareness, education, and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
In the movie And the Band Played On, stakeholders’ interests stymied public health efforts to research and implement health policy to control the rapidly emerging disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The stakeholders within the movie, those whose interest would be impacted by policy change, included the affected populations, scientists, state and federal public health officials, and organizations including blood banks. Early in the epidemic, the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were tentative in disclosing vital information – many homosexual men were becoming infected in the bathhouses (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Despite having the supporting evidence of patient zero and a sexual cluster
...ile the pandemic will absolutely leverage the rate of financial development, structural alterations are furthermore expected to be one of the prime economic hallmarks of the AIDS pandemic (Arndt 427-449). The effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be visualized by the overwhelming change in mortality rate of South Africans. The yearly number of mortalities from HIV increased distinctly between the years 1997, when about 316,559 people died, and 2006 when an estimated 607,184 people died ("HIV AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA"). Those who are currently assuming the burden of the increase in mortality rate are adolescents and young adults. Virtually one-in-three females of ages 25-29, and over 25% of males aged 30-34, are currently living with HIV in South Africa (UNAIDS). The good news, thanks to better supply of ARV treatment, is that life-expectancy has risen vastly since 2005.